New film Operation Cronos revisits 2017 Barcelona terror attack and aftermath

Operation Cronos opened in cinemas on Friday, reconstructing the hours and days following the 2017 terrorist attacks.

The film – known in Catalan simply as 'Cronos' – follows the events from the attack on Barcelona's La Rambla to the hunt for members of the jihadist cell that based in Ripoll, in the Catalan Pre-Pyrenees.

The police thriller, directed by Fernando González Molina and written by Alberto Marini, stars Enric Auquer, Diana Gómez and Mónica López.

In an interview with the Catalan News Agency (ACN), Auquer argues that nine years after the attacks, there is a need for society to engage in self-criticism, beyond simply focusing on the responsibility of the terrorists themselves.

"If Catalan boys end up becoming radicalised by some son of a bitch, the imam, we have to think about what responsibility we have, where we have failed," the actor said.

"No preconceived idea"

The film is based on more than two years of research by screenwriter Alberto Marini and journalists Nacho Carretero and Arturo Lezcano.

The team gathered testimonies and information about the four days following the attacks before deciding which story they wanted to tell.

"We immersed ourselves in reality as much as possible, without having a preconceived idea of where to go," Marini explains.

The screenplay also draws on the testimony of people directly involved in the police operation and crisis response, including Patrícia Plaja, then head of communications for the Catalan police, the Mossos d'Esquadra, who is played by Diana Gómez.

Auquer spoke to Inspector Jordi Rodón, the inspiration for his character, while Mónica López spoke to Núria Perpinyà, a social worker in Ripoll.

Director Fernando González Molina says meeting the people on whom the characters were based helped him understand how they experienced the aftermath and convey that experience to the actors.

The Operation Cronos team chose not to show blood or explicitly recreate the attacks, instead focusing on the tension of the police manhunt.

Victims of terrorism attended a special screening on Wednesday, Marini says, and they thanked the production for treating the events in a "non-morbid and non-scandalous" way and for focusing more on "preserving the memory" of what happened. 

Beyond the police pursuit, the film explores how information was managed during the operation and, in particular, the impact of the attacks on Ripoll.

For González Molina, these three strands – the hunt for the terrorists, the battle for control of information and the social wound left behind – come together to explain, from different perspectives, what happened during the 124 hours following the attack.

Marini says the film also explore questions left unanswered after the attacks.

"It was important that this film was a portrait of four days, about the search for the terrorists, but also to plant the seed of the dilemma faced by many citizens who question how to relate to the world of Islam," the screenwriter says.

He points to Ripoll, where the jihadist cell emerged and where an Islamophobic party, Aliança Catalana, subsequently gained prominence.

Auquer says the film can serve to open up a discussion about society's role in radicalisation.

"These young men have full responsibility for their actions, but if they end up becoming radicalised, we have to undertake this exercise in self-criticism."

"We have to think about our responsibility, that these boys may have felt racism and that it may have been a spark. I hope the film plants that seed."

Diana Gómez also sees the events as a wound that remains open. The actress says the trauma of the 2017 attacks has "direct consequences" for society today and that the characters in the film partly serve as a mirror for those doubts.

Mónica López, meanwhile, hopes the film will not offer definitive answers but instead raise questions. She hopes audiences leave the cinema reflecting on individual and collective responsibility for what happened and for the consequences that still endure.

Operation Cronos is produced by Nostromo Pictures, Beta Fiction Spain and Hogar Producción AIE, in co-production with 3Cat, with the participation of RTVE, Movistar Plus+ and HBO Max.